


Currents of the Force

by acf151



Series: Order Falling [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sith Alchemy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acf151/pseuds/acf151
Summary: Takes place during the Rise of Skywalker
Series: Order Falling [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593052
Kudos: 15





	Currents of the Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CheapBourbon (blank_ghost)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blank_ghost/gifts), [BitZombie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitZombie/gifts), [icandrawamoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Pyre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21930805) by [icandrawamoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth). 
  * Inspired by [this story does not end here-](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/671755) by Cheap Bourbon. 

> I'm tired, and there's a real possibility I'm not going to be able to finish these stories. So here's the incomplete pieces. If I can, I'll add to them. This was going to be a major status quo change. But since I haven't actually set the status quo, this'll just be what it is.
> 
> Inspiration Art: https://cheapbourbon.tumblr.com/post/187457121084/this-story-does-not-end-here

Hux had been adamant that Cal was not, under any circumstances to return to the surface of Exegol. He had gone so far as to order his squad to wait with him in their quarters. The Force roiled with the conflict raging in the skies, and below the surface, in currents and eddies. It was distracting. The Force flowed through and around the ship; it was a wonder that even the dullest trooper didn't feel it. It was better once they'd left Exegol's orbit and traveled to Kijimi, but events were rising to a head, much as they'd had in the final days of the Clone Wars. He'd just been too inexperienced then to recognize it for the warning it was. 

The sharpness of the rifle shot, however, was acutely positioned to cut through all of that feedback. Hux. Hux had been shot. On his own ship, among his own fleet. Cal could feel that it wasn't life threatening, a blow to the leg. But that wasn't the point. Stronger than his need to obey the First Order, was his need to protect his friend. 

Cal met him in the medbay, where the medical droids were stitching up his leg. Given the number of hover gurneys being rolled into it and a separate stream headed into the morgue, it took a bit of time to get in. He didn't even have to say anything. 

"It's fine. Kestis, I'm fine. It was just the rebels that came through, they took me hostage and forced me to get them to their ship." Hux said it with the air of a man reciting a grocery list. 

"Uh, huh." Cal's tone was disbelieving. The number of troopers coming in on gurney's unconscious or under sheets belied the mercy of the rebels that had raided the ship. "Who was it?"

"The traitor trooper and the pilot he rescued broke the Wookie out." 

"Was Kylo Ren's quarry with them?" That might have made a difference in a leg shot versus a head shot. 

"No. Ren confronted her in the hangar where we found their craft. The traitor was able to pick her up there."

"She jumped through the magcon field?" Well, that was impressive. Ultimately immaterial to the matter at hand, but impressive. "But she wasn't with them when they shot you and escaped?" Cal was beginning to have a really bad feeling about this. 

"As I've said. We're heading to Exegol. I'll make my report to the Allegiant General. You go to quarters and wait there. Your team will not be needed." 

"Hux," He began. But Hux didn't want to hear it.

"Go to quarters and wait there." Cal had not been subject to the sleep period subliminal conditioning that most First Order officers and troops habitually had since his return from his unauthorized leave and subsequent re-indoctrination. Mostly because he was in Hux's quarters. But still, the ingrained instinct to obey a direct order was strong. Cal and his trooper escort left the medbay. 

The interview with Pryde was not going to go well. He could feel it. Cal looked around the room at all the injured and dying troopers. This wasn't working anymore. If such a small team could do so much damage, this was not working. The First Order was fallible, as the Jedi Order was fallible. Something critical had been overlooked. Cal could feel it in the Force. A small part of his conditioning cracked.

He returned to their quarters. Compulsion satisfied, he got his and Hux's go bags from the cabinet they were kept in, and sent them to the light freighter they used for covert work with one of their squad. Armed, it had two tie defender fighters and enough room and supplies for at least ten people, including a small but functional medical suite. Depending on how the next few hours played out, they could adjust to a variety of circumstances. Assuming he was able to get them there. 

He felt it when Ren took his Interceptor and tore off after the girl. Why did the dark side adepts always want to dragoon some poor Jedi on to their team regardless of their preferences in the matter? She doesn't want to kick puppies with you. Let it go. Not that that had ever been an argument he'd been able to win. 

"Sir, we're to keep you here until after the General meets with the Allegiant General." They had had longer lasting conditioning than he’d had. Of course, they obeyed their orders, the First Order was all the life they could remember. Without it, well, without it, they would need help adjusting. He could help them. More of his conditioning cracked and began to flake away. 

They'd worked out into a good team over the last few months, the five of them. They kept him alive and returned safely to the Order, and they'd slowly started to warm up to him. Once they figured out that his pacifist preferences did not mean he wouldn't destroy the opposition as completely as the Supreme Commander, they’d mostly settled down and given him the leeway needed to make his missions successful. 

The shift to hyperspace was a jolt. They were returning to Exegol. The Force continued to writhe, as time passed. More and more of the strictures confining him, his actions, his thoughts, his beliefs, peeled away. 

When the rifle shot came this time, Cal could feel it was far more serious than the first. A chest shot, and shock followed. Hux was still alive, though barely. He was already being dragged off to the morgue like so much refuse. 

"Time to go." Cal had his light saber and his officer's coat. He would need both to complete this final mission for the Order - saving Hux, and getting them all out alive. 

"Sir!" His trooper protested. This was a minor hurdle. He would get past it. Drawing himself to his full height, imposing in his coat with the modified First Order Jedi patch on the arm, Cal channeled all the authority he could muster.

"General Hux's meeting with the Allegiant General has concluded, we’re to meet him back in the med bay. I will not be leaving the ship, or interfering in the Allegiant General's orders." Strangely, the lie worked. The trooper allowed him to pass and the three fell in around him in an escort formation rather than what they used for an arrest.

The trip to the med bay was a blur. But as usual, the stark halls were clear, and their path unimpeded. Once there, Cal found Hux shoved half on to a table with no support systems or droids helping him recover. The vaunted loyalty of the First Order. Or Final Order, or whatever hellscape the latest set of the Emperor's flunkies had made of themselves. 

He loved this man. This man had been the only one helping him recover from his fifty years Imprisonment in a carbonite slab. This man kept Ren's knights from killing him after his return from his search for the Jedi and his encounter with the cloned Emperor. After his courses of indoctrination to the First Order, this man ensured he had challenges for the mind and body, work worth doing well, and people to serve. This man had given him a life beyond that of Sith experiment at a time when Cal had given up hope of ever being more.

Hux had understood when he could no longer bear the covert subliminal indoctrination tapes, and had allowed him to stay in his quarters. First as a guest, then a pet bodyguard and operative, and eventually as his lover.

Cal drew Hux down to the floor into his lap. Fluid from the superheated and expanded flesh seeped out from the front and the back. Blood from the leg burn, which had reopened on impact pooled on the ground around them. If he was going to do anything, there was little time. 

Before he could move, the Force screamed with death, the impact driving Cal back to his knees. Millions of souls, billions of creatures, trillions of plants, all bound to the Force suddenly stopped. A ragged vacuum rippled through the Force, an undertow of pain and fear and loss. Somehow, the Final Order had destroyed still another planet. Another uniquely priceless section of the Force sent sucking down to feed the Emperor. 

Damn them anyway for forcing him to be a part of this. For making him be this horrible smash up of Imperial servility and Jedi discipline. Fine. They wanted his service; they had had it. They wanted his gifts. Fine. But now, on his terms. Caught in the aftermath of the death of Kijimi, rising emotions filled him. Filled by the Force, the commands and imposed loyalties fell finally away, leaving scars and twitches, but leaving Cal with enough of his own will to push past them. 

Six troopers were also in the medbay, their lives fast fading away. In his time with the Emperor, Cal could not help knowing precisely what and how Palpatine had drawn the life energy out of him and into his corrupting body. It hadn't been enough to bring him fully to life, Cal had not been strong enough for that. Perhaps with other Force adepts, Palpatine could have kept his secrets. But not with Cal, not with his psychometry.

Cal got his troopers to help him maneuver Hux to a hover gurney. Lying a hand first on Hux's chest, and reaching out to the closest trooper, Cal felt the energy of the man dwindling. Forcing calm, somehow in that maelstrom, Cal tried an experimental tug. Nothing. He was not whole enough, free enough yet, with the light side of the Force, to be able to do so great a work. Something so directly contrary to what the Force and nature willed.

No. He would not lose another friend. He had already lost everyone else to the Emperor. Master Tapal, Prauf, Merrin, Cere and Greez. Even BD-1, at least for the moment. He would not lose this last, most recent tie to this era of the galaxy. 

Currents from the vortex of pain from the graveyard of Kijimi caught at him. There was power there. A lot of it, if he could somehow connect to it. So, he gathered his fear. His fear of loss, and failure. His fear of failing the Jedi Order, the First Order, and everything he had devoted himself to protect. Then, layering it with his determination, he pulled again. Slowly at first, but deepening into a flood, Cal shunted all the life and as much of the Force he could from the trooper, and into Hux's shocked body. Thank the Force for that shock. It was keeping the fragments of Hux's soul from fleeing into the Force, where Cal could not find him. 

The remains of the first and second dying troopers, helped to slowly knit most of the internal damage done to Hux's internal organs. 

Alarm klaxons started to ring. Explosions began jostling the ship, but not enough to do real damage. He was invested too deeply in this work to check on the turmoil he could feel outside. 

The third dying trooper started the delicate process of repairing the damage to the ribs, blood vessels and skin. Time continued to pass, and a mighty struggle raged outside. The fourth and fifth trooper helped with some of the damage to his mind, but Cal wasn't a healer. Palpatine wasn't a healer either. This was meatball surgery of the roughest sort, and he had to spare enough of his own energy to get them out. The energy from the sixth got Hux marginally awake. At that point, Cal stopped. It took several minutes for him to push away his anger and fear, and return to as even a keel as possible.

"Hux, can you see me? Talk to me." 

"Kestis? What happened?" He seemed marginally lucid. Quickly, Cal waved a hand and was relieved to see Hux’s pupils dilate as his eyes tracked the movement. Hopefully most of the damage the shock had done to his brain was repaired.

"Pryde shot you, and the First Order is fighting for its life. It's time to go."

"He shot me?" 

"Yeah, he probably didn't buy your 'they took me hostage' story any more than anyone else did. Okay, I'm getting you out of here, you go back to sleep." Before Hux could object, a quick brush of Cal's hand on Hux's head, and the man fell back into unconsciousness. Thank you, Ren. They'd have to take their chances.  
Cal added an oxygen mask to Hux's face and pulled a blanket up over Hux's head, to disguise who it was. "Grab those med kits. We're heading to our ship."

"Specialist Kestis," the trooper said, using his name, and not an honorific for the first time since his indoctrination. "Clearly Hux has been relieved of command." His trooper objected. The other two had blocked the door, keeping them both inside the room and out of trouble. They were afraid he'd go kill Pryde. This was starting to grow tiresome. 

A more strident alarm klaxon started to wail. Cal checked in with the battle. Whoa. What had initially been a single X-wing, had turned into a fleet of Resistance ships, struggling valiantly against the Final Order fleet. That wasn't hopeful. 

A quick search showed that the Jedi Rey was down with the Emperor, and Kylo, huh. No, Ben Solo had landed a different TIE, and was making his way into the temple.  
Something had happened with him. He no longer roiled with anger and resentment. Lately he had been better at keeping it in check, but now it was more like he had found peace at last. Real peace. In himself, in the Force, and strangely, with Rey. They both shone brighter than he had ever seen. 

Either they won, and the First Order fell, or the Emperor won, and he was back to being an experiment and tool. Cal had no interest in helping that monster use him yet again to become even more powerful than he already was. 

"TL-68409." A hint of persuasion colored his voice. "We have an assignment to place an operative deep within the Resistance, in the event this assault isn't put down. General Hux has been set up as a spy and reduced to this state to play on the rebel sympathies. They have a long history of making use of turncoats. If he can be brought to them, the First Order will be better positioned for mopping up this Resistance, and advancing the goals of the Supreme Leader." Though he'd tried to limit the amount of persuasion he's used on his troopers, he had still had to use it from time to time. 

"Specialist Kestis, I'm very sorry, but I cannot permit you to leave this room." The trooper brought his weapon to bear, pointing it at Cal.

"TL, do you have any doubt at all that I can't stop any bolt you send my way? Do you have any doubt that if you force me, I will go through you? If you all come with us, you can continue to live, and maybe even serve the First Order. If you don't, you can die here when the Resistance destroys this ship and everyone on it."  
"We've brought you in before. And the Resistance will not destroy this fleet." A note of uncertainty sounded in his voice.

"Yes, when there were four of you. There are only three of you here. Do you follow your orders to your death, or do you help me and Hux, and live?" Behind his back, Cal quietly palmed his lightsaber from his belt. 

"TL, stop." GH-45408 spoke up from the door. "We'll accompany you, Sir. This way." Leading the way, GH guided the party to their usual hangar, with TL beside him and KF-98409 bringing up the rear, following the hover gurney. 

It took them only ten minutes to get to the hangar. By that time, the number of Resistance ships in orbit had increased a hundred fold. It was long since time to go. 

While TL and GN got Hux stowed securely in the medical suite, Cal headed up to the cockpit and made sure SN-624210 was ready to go. "Take us out, into a higher orbit, and prepare to go to lightspeed."  
Just as their freighter broke orbit, the entire sky lit up with a spiderweb of purple lightening. The Emperor was stronger still.

"Put us on a lightspeed path to towards the mid worlds, but nowhere near the Core or the Republic. I'll reset our navigation after the first jump."

"Where are we going, Sir?" Their freighter effortlessly evaded the oncoming vessels, and broke for hyperspace. Since they were not a capital ship, and were heading away from the battle, there were only token attempts to interfere. 

"Well, first, we're going to let Hux rest and recover enough to talk to us about what he discussed with Allegiant General Pryde. And then we're going to decide what the next steps are. It'll be several hours until we arrive. ''I'd like to focus on what the Force can tell me about how the battle at Exegol is proceeding." That was all Cal got out before a storm of screams and shouts pulsed out in a concussive wave. 

The accumulated strength of millions of Sith and Jedi already one with the Force tore through hyperspace and all the minute threads of energy binding the universe together; clashing violently in a titanic struggle for dominion on every level, at every point, balance be damned. It made no sense. The Force was largely neutral; enough individual choices by individual beings ensured that for all that the dark hid, the light revealed. And when one side grew stronger, it was redressed by the choices of individuals, not elemental struggles amongst the aspects of the Force itself.

Only rarely was the unbalance so great as to require struggles at the fundamental sub-atomic structure of it all. Cal had never had the opportunity to study under Madame Jocasta and other noted Force theorists, but he'd be stunned if it had happened in this fashion in millennia. 

The backlash in the Force swept through him. By nature, choice and talent, Cal was primarily bound to the light side of the Force, but his efforts on Hux's behalf, and the years of service to Palpatine and the First Order, even under delusion, compulsion and imprisonment meant that the dark side found enough of a threshold inside him to lodge a hook, a beachhead to wage a battle in him. 

Half supported and half flayed, Cal fell to his knees in the cockpit, his face bloodless. 

"Sir?" SN could leave the ship on autopilot, now that they were in hyperspace. He got Cal off his knees and into the lounge area of the ship. "Something's wrong." He said to GH and TL, who were done in the medical suite. 

Cal stopped attempting to keep the screams in the Force internal, but by that point, he had no air to get out anything more than a breathy wheeze. As the conflicting mental crescendo built, Cal's body started convulsing just as violently.

It was a mercy when GH stunned him, and TL slapped on a pair of Force-suppressing cuffs.

"Damned Force wielders and their drama." 

***


End file.
